Rhizosphere microorganisms play an important role in soil carbon flow, through turnover of root exudates, but there is little information on which organisms are actively involved or on the influence of environmental conditions on active communities. In this study, a 13CO2 pulse labelling field experiment was performed in an upland grassland soil, followed by RNA-stable isotope probing (SIP) ana...

Studies of the last decades have shown that peat and peat-bogs function as an important factor for environment protection. Due to good take-up and filtering qualities, peat-bog deposits perform to absorb petroleum products, different natural and human-made chemical and radioactive pollutants. Due to low salinity of bog water and turf humic acids, the peat-bed is capable to extract cations of ca...

Chloride and caesium doped V-Fe mixed oxides prepared by different methods and calcined under vapour-phase transport-restricted conditions showed a high initial furan yield of up to 40 mol-% in the oxidation of butadiene. However, after only a few hours on stream a significant loss of activity and selectivity was observed. The reason for this undesirable property was investigated using differen...

Even though many studies have shown that radioactive caesium levels in fish caught outside of Japan were below experimental detection limits of a few Bq kg(-1), significant public concern has been expressed about the safety of consuming seafood from the Pacific Ocean following the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident. To address the public concerns, samples of commonly consumed salmon and groundf...

The use of X-ray image receptors that produce a digital image is becoming increasingly important. Possible benefits include improved dynamic range and detective quantum efficiency, improved detectability for objects of low intrinsic contrast, and reduced radiation dose. The image can be available quickly. The display is separated from the image capture so that processing and contrast adjustment...

Large amounts of radioactive material were released from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, contaminating the local environment. During the early stages of such nuclear accidents, iodine I-131 (half-life 8.02 d) is usually detectable in the surrounding atmosphere and bodies of water. On the other hand, in the long-term, soil and water contamination by Cs-137, which has a half-life of...

1. A compound of hyaluronate and protein, called hyaluronate-protein was isolated from pooled human synovial fluids by caesium chloride density-gradient ultracentrifugation. 2. The isolated hyaluronate-protein was labelled with [(125)I]iodide and the following studies were done. (a) Ultracentrifugation in caesium chloride showed that the protein moiety ((125)I counts) and hyaluronate (hexuronat...